Posted on 01/02/2016 8:32:06 AM PST by Salvation
I don't really know Msgr. Pope, so I don't know how deep his theological thought is. Certainly a major point like “double-predestination” is going to, so to speak, exercise force on all the other issues that a systematic theology will have to cover. And, at least for me, it takes a lot of just plain skull time to begin to see that.
It's funny. It's not just Xtians who deal with the issues of “ripples” in theology. A college friend has become an orthodox rabbi, and I have looked at some of his conversations. I discovered to my surprise that Maimonides is sometimes viewed with suspicion for his debt to Aristotle. Tertullian’s complaint about Athens and Jerusalem is not confined to Xtians!
As far as I know, every decent Catholic theologian, whatever he says about free will, will always agree that every single, itsy-bitsy, teeny-tiny good thing, thought, impulse, intention, desire, or act starts with God and is directed by God throughout. I certainly adamantly refuse to take credit for anything that might be considered good. That was so when I was a Protestant minister, and it remains to, by God's active grace, now that I'm a Catholic layman.
The stuff kind-of gives me a headache. I don't think about if I can avoid it, just go natural, simpler, try to let the Word work as is, try to avoid second guessing and attempting to figure out how to iron out what seems like different sides of the equation.
Those two, seemingly vastly different instructions (the price is paid for all sins /// Don't Sin!) are there because of the ways of man, and the wicked heart of man. *I think* (and right now, I too tired after hours of chess).
So on best days, I just give up, trusting God knows all there is from the beginning to the end, and He is always good -- just have to acknowledge Him in the day-to-day. When I can get away with it, without somebody hassling me. Not that you were, at all...
When all is said, and resaid, and picked over, taken apart, re-assembled, cleaned and lubed, Praise God and rest in the Love, rejoicing that he is way smarter’n us.
Blessings on you year. May we know, feel, and show his Love in the coming days.
Thanks.
You may be (likely are?) one of the few around here who could understand what I was saying, yourself apparently able to see the ramifications, how those would apply, how far those things could go...
Yes. He (God) has His own way of looking at things. Like -- every thing -- all at once?
We simply can't. At least I can not. I'm persuaded you are not one who thinks that you do, either.
Yet we can have wisdom from on high, condescend to men of low estate, the spirit informing us (opening our understanding) to that which we need to know.
At risk of confusing some people around here perhaps, in not going to (and citing) the various scripture passages which are source origins of the last preceding sentence, citing & providing link to yet another instead; James 3:17
I will say now;
We can thank God for Him being like that, towards us, and I thank YOU for being like that, towards myself.
That is a HUGELY on target verse for (nearly) all apologetics and interdenominational conversation.
Thank you for your kind words, which I offer back. God is merciful.
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